Abacus Daily Debt News

Recession ‘will last until 2010′

Britain will be in recession throughout the whole of 2009, it has been forecast.

The Confederation of British Industry has predicted that the slump will continue until early 2010, with unemployment reaching approximately 2.9 million by the end of this year.

Director general of the body Richard Lambert warned that the future of the economy remains "extremely uncertain", making it difficult to estimate what may happen over the coming months.

"Ultimately the severity of this recession will depend on the speedy implementation of the government’s measures to unblock the credit markets and the success of various global stimuli packages," he stated.

Mr Lambert added that interest rate cuts, fiscal policies and falling inflation should help to stabilise conditions towards the second half of 2009.

Recently, figures released by the Office for National Statistics showed that unemployment rose to 1.97 million in the final three months of last year.

By Jamie Price